MoDOT project manager Greg Horn said workers are still out on the piers six days a week, 20 hours a day. But the flooding - the river is about five feet above flood stage - means crews can only work at about 60 percent efficiency.

The decision by the Army Corps of Engineers to blast the levee at Birds Point appears to have brought some relief to Cairo, Ill., but the possibility of record crests continues all along the Mississippi River.